SOS MEADOW LARK. 



amusement to the sportsman, being most easily shot while on 

 wing; as they frequently squat among the long grass, and spring 

 within gunshot. The nest of this species is built generally in, 

 or below, a thick tuft or tussock of grass; it is composed of dry 

 grass, and fine bent laid at bottom, and wound all around, leaving 

 an arched entrance level with the ground; the inside is lined 

 with fine stalks of the same materials, disposed with great regu- 

 larity. The eggs are four, sometimes five, white, marked with 

 specks and several large blotches of reddish brown, chiefly at 

 the thick end. Their food consists of caterpillars, grub worms, 

 beetles, and grass seeds; with a considerable proportion of gravel. 

 Their general name is the Meadow Lark; among the Virgi- 

 nians they are usually called the Old field Lark. 



The length of this bird is ten inches and a half, extent sixteen 

 and a half; throat, breast, belly, and line from the eye to the nos- 

 trils, rich yellow; inside lining and edge of the wing the same; 

 an oblong crescent of deep velvetty black ornaments the low- 

 er part of the throat; lesser wing-coverts black, broadly bor- 

 dered with pale ash: rest of the wing feathers light brown, 

 handsomely serrated with black; a line of yellowish white di- 

 vides the crown, bounded on each side by a stripe of black in- 

 termixed with bay, and another line of yellowish white passes 

 over each eye backwards; cheeks bluish white, back and rest 

 of the upper parts beautifully variegated with black, bright bay, 

 and pale ochre: tail wedged, the feathers neatly pointed, the 

 four outer ones on each side, nearly all white; sides, thighs, and 

 vent pale yellow ochre, streaked with black; upper mandible 

 brown, lower bluish white; eyelids furnished with strong black 

 hairs; legs and feet very large, and of a pale flesh colour. 



The female has the black crescent more skirted with gray, 

 and not of so deep a black. In the rest of her markings the plu- 

 mage differs little from that of the male. I must here take notice 

 of a mistake committed by Mr. Edwards in his History of Birds, 

 Vol. VI, p. 123, where, on the authority of a bird dealer of 

 London, he describes the Calandre Lark (a native of Italy and 

 Russia) as belonging also to N. America, and having been 



